looked at it. There was nothing remarkable about the cheque--made out
to Mr. Daniel Multenius on order for £36--except the two odd looking
names at its foot--_Chang Li: Chen Li_. Otherwise, it was just like all
other cheques--and it was on a local bank, in Edgware Road, and duly
crossed. But Melky instantly observed the date, and put one of his long
fingers to it.
"November 18th," he remarked. "The day he died. Did you notice that,
Zillah?"
"Yes," answered Zillah. "It must have come in by post and he's thrown
it, as he often did throw things, into that desk. Well--that's
explained! That'll be the quarter's rent, then, for this furnished
house, Mr. Penniket?"
"Evidently!" agreed the solicitor. "Of course, there's no need to give
notice to these two foreigners--yet. It'll take a little time to settle
the estate, and you can let them stay on awhile. I know who they
are--your grandfather mentioned them--two medical students, of
University College. They're all right. Well, now, that completes the
schedule. As regards administering the estate--"
A sudden gentle but firm knock at the side-door brought Zillah to her
feet again.
"I know that knock," she remarked. "It's Ayscough, the detective. I
suppose he may come in, now?"
A moment later Ayscough, looking very grave and full of news, had
joined the circle round the table. He shook his head as he glanced at
Mr. Penniket.
"I came on here to give you a bit of information," he said. "There's
been an important development this afternoon. You know the name of this
Stephen Purvis that's been mentioned as having been about here? Well,
this afternoon his brother turned up from Devonshire. He wanted to see
us--to tell us something. He thinks Stephen's been murdered!"
"On what grounds?" asked the solicitor.
"It turns out Stephen had sent Mr. Multenius a rare fine
diamond--uncut--from South Africa," answered Ayscough. "Worth every
penny of eighty thousand pounds!"
He was closely watching Zillah and Melky as he gave this piece of news,
and he was quick to see their utter astonishment. Zillah turned to the
solicitor; Melky slapped the table.
"That's been what the old man fetched from his bank that day!" he
exclaimed. "S'elp me if I ain't beginning to see light! Robbery--before
murder!"
"That's about it," agreed Ayscough. "But I'll tell you all that's come
out."
He went on to narrate the events of the afternoon, from the arrival of
Mr. Killick and his companions at the police station to the coming of
John Purvis, and his three listeners drank in every word with rising
interest. Mr. Penniket became graver and graver.
"Where's Mr. Killick now--and the rest of them?" he asked in the end.
"Gone to find that American chap--Guyler," answered Ayscough. "They did
think he might be likely--having experience of these South African
matters--to know something how Stephen Purvis may have been followed.
You see--you're bound to have some theory! It looks as if Stephen
Purvis had been tracked--for the sake of that diamond. The thieves
probably tracked it to this shop--most likely attacked Mr. Multenius
for it. They'd most likely been in here just before young Lauriston
came in."
"But where does Stephen Purvis come in--then?" asked Mr. Penniket.
"Can't say yet--," replied Ayscough, doubtfully. "But--it may be that
he--and Levendale--got an idea who the thieves were, and went off after
them, and have got--well, trapped, or, as John Purvis suggests,
murdered. It's getting a nicer tangle than ever!"
"What's going to be done?" enquired the solicitor.
"Why!" said Ayscough. "At present, there's little more to be done than
what is being done! There's no end of publicity in the newspapers about
both Levendale and Purvis. Every newspaper reporter in London's on the
stretch for a thread of news of 'em! And we're getting posters and
bills out, all over, advertising for them--those bills'll be outside
every police-station in London--and over a good part of England--by
tomorrow noon. And, of course, we're all at work. But you see, we
haven't so far, the slightest clue as to the thieves! For there's no
doubt, now, that it was theft first, and the rest afterwards."
Mr. Penniket rose and gathered his papers together.
"I suppose," he remarked, "that neither of you ever heard of this
diamond, nor of Mr. Multenius having charge of it? No--just so. An
atmosphere of secrecy all over the transaction. Well--all I can say,
Ayscough, is this--you find Levendale. He's the man who knows."
When the solicitor had gone, Ayscough turned to Zillah.
"You never saw anything of any small box, packet, or anything of that
sort, lying about after your grandfather's death?" he asked. "I'm
thinking of what that diamond had been enclosed in, when he brought it
from the bank. My notion is that he was examining that diamond when he
was attacked, and in that case the box he'd taken it from would be
lying about, or thrown aside."
"You were in here yourself, before me," said Zillah.
"Quite so--but I never noticed anything," remarked Ayscough.
"Neither have I," replied Zillah. "And don't you think that whoever
seized that diamond would have the sense to snatch up anything
connected with it! I believe in what Mr. Penniket said just now--you
find Levendale. If there's a man living who knows who killed my
grandfather, Levendale's that man. You get him."
Mrs. Goldmark came in just then, to resume her task of keeping Zillah
company, and the detective left. Melky snatched up his overcoat and
followed him out, and in the side-passage laid a hand on his arm.
"Look here, Mr. Ayscough!" he whispered confidentially. "I want you!
There's something turned up in there, just now, that I ain't said a
word about to either Penniket or my cousin--but I will to you. Do you
know what, Mr. Ayscough--listen here;"--and he went on to tell the
detective the story of the furnished house in Maida Vale, its Chinese
occupants, and their cheque. "Dated that very day the old man was
scragged!" exclaimed Melky. "Now, Mr. Ayscough, supposing that one o'
those Chinks called here with that cheque that afternoon when Zillah
was out, and found the old man alone, and that diamond in his hand--eh?"
Ayscough started and gave a low, sharp whistle.
"Whew!" he said. "By George, that's an idea! Where's this house, do you
say? Molteno Lodge, Maida Vale? I know it--small detached house in a
garden. I say!--let's go and take a look round there!"
"It's what I was going to propose--and at once," responded Melky. "Come
on--but on the way, we'll pay a bit of a call. I want to ask a question
of Dr. Mirandolet."
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
THE RAT
Ayscough and Melky kept silence, until they had exchanged the busy
streets for the quieter by-roads which lie behind the Paddington
Canal--then, as they turned up Portsdown Road, the detective tapped his
companion's arm.
"What do you know about these two Chinese chaps that have this
furnished house of yours?" he asked. "Much?--or little?"
"We don't know nothing at all, Mr. Ayscough--me and my cousin Zillah,"
replied Melky. "Never heard of 'em! Never knew they were there! Never
knew the old man had furnished house to let in Maida Vale! He was
close, the old man was, about some things. That was one of 'em.
However, Mr. Penniket, he knew of this--but only recently. He says
they're all right--medical students at one of the hospitals--yes,
University College. That's in Gower Street, ain't it? The old man--he
put in a note about there here Molteno Lodge that these Chinks were
good tenants. I know what he'd mean by that!--paid their rent regular,
in advance."
"Oh, I know they've always plenty of money, these chaps!" observed
Ayscough. "I've been wondering if I'd ever seen these two. But Lor'
bless you!--there's such a lot o' foreigners in this quarter,
especially Japanese and Siamese--law students and medical students and
such like--that you'd never notice a couple of Easterns
particularly--and I've no doubt they wear English clothes. Now, what do
you want to see this doctor for?" he asked as they halted by Dr.
Mirandolet's door. "Anything to do with the matter in hand?"
"You'll see in a minute," replied Melky as he rang the bell. "Just a
notion that occurred to me. And it has got to do with it."
Dr. Mirandolet was in, and received his visitors in a room which was
half-surgery and half-laboratory, and filled to the last corner with
the evidences and implements of his profession. He was wearing a white
linen operating jacket, and his dark face and black hair looked all the
darker and blacker because of it. Melky gazed at him with some awe as
he dropped into the chair which Mirandolet indicated and found the
doctor's piercing eyes on him.
"Just a question or two, mister!" he said, apologetically. "Me and Mr.
Ayscough there is doing a bit of looking into this mystery about Mr.
Multenius, and knowing as you was a big man in your way, it struck me
you'd tell me something. I was at that inquest on Parslett, you know,
mister."
Mirandolet nodded and waited, and Melky gained courage.
"Mister!" he said, suddenly bending forward and tapping the doctor's
knee in a confidential fashion. "I hear you say at that inquest as how
you'd lived in the East?"
"Yes!" replied Mirandolet. "Many years. India--Burmah--China!"
"You know these Easterns, mister, and their little way?" suggested
Melky. "Now, would it be too much--I don't want to get no professional
information, you know, if it ain't etiquette!--but would it be too much
to ask you if them folks is pretty good hands at poisoning?"
Mirandolet laughed, showing a set of very white teeth, and glared at
Ayscough with a suggestion of invitation to join in his amusement. He
clapped Melky on the shoulder as if he had said something diverting.
"Good hands, my young friend?" he exclaimed. "The very best in the
world! Past masters! Adepts. Poison you while they look at you!"
"Bit cunning and artful about it, mister?" suggested Melky.
"Beyond your conception, my friend," replied Mirandolet. "Unless I very
much mistake your physiognomy, you yourself come of an ancient race
which is not without cunning and artifice--but in such matters as you
refer to, you are children, compared to your Far East folk."
"Just so, mister--I believe you!" said Melky, solemnly. "And--which of
'em, now, do you consider the cleverest of the lot--them as you say
you've lived amongst, now? You mentioned three lots of 'em, you
know--Indians, Burmese, Chinese. Which would you consider the
artfullest of them three--if it came to a bit of real underhand work,
now?"
"For the sort of thing you're thinking of, my friend," answered
Mirandolet, "you can't beat a Chinaman. Does that satisfy you?"
Melky rose and glanced at the detective before turning to the doctor.
"Mister," he said, "that's precisely what I should ha' said myself.
Only--I wanted to know what a big man like you thought. Now, I know!
Much obliged to you, mister. If there's ever anything I can do for you,
doctor--if you want a bit of real good stuff--jewellery, you know--at
dead cost price--"
Mirandolet laughed and clapping Melky's shoulder again, looked at
Ayscough.
"What's our young friend after?" he asked, good-humouredly. "What's his
game?"
"Hanged if I know, doctor!" said Ayscough, shaking his head. "He's got
some notion in his head. Are you satisfied, Mr. Rubinstein?"
Melky was making for the door.
"Ain't I just said so?" he answered. "You come along of me, Mr.
Ayscough, and let's be getting about our business. Now, look here!" he
said, taking the detective's arm when they had left the house. "We're
going to take a look at them Chinks. I've got it into my head that
they've something to do with this affair--and I'm going to see 'em, and
to ask 'em a question or two. And--you're coming with me!"
"I say, you know!" remarked Ayscough. "They're respectable
gentlemen--even if they are foreigners. Better be careful--we don't
know anything against 'em."
"Never you fear!" said Melky. "I'll beat 'em all right. Ain't I got a
good excuse, Mr. Ayscough? Just to ask a civil question. Begging their
pardons for intrusion, but since the lamented death of Mr. Daniel
Multenius, me and Miss Zillah Wildrose has come into his bit of
property, and does the two gentlemen desire to continue their tenancy,
and is there anything we can do to make 'em comfortable--see? Oh, I'll
talk to 'em all right!"
"What're you getting at, all the same?" asked the detective. "Give it a
title!"
Melky squeezed his companion's arm.
"I want to see 'em," he whispered. "That's one thing. And I want to
find out how that last cheque of theirs got into our back-parlour! Was
it sent by post--or was it delivered by hand? And if by hand--who
delivered it?"
"You're a cute 'un, you are!" observed Ayscough. "You'd better join us."
"Thank you, Mr. Ayscough, but events has happened which'll keep me busy
at something else," said Melky, cheerfully. "Do you know that my good
old relative has divided everything between me and my cousin?--I'm a
rich man, now, Mr. Ayscough. S'elp me!--I don't know how rich I am.
It'll take a bit o' reckoning."
"Good luck to you!" exclaimed the detective heartily. "Glad to hear it!
Then I reckon you and your cousin'll be making a match of it--keeping
the money in the family, what?"
Melky laid his finger on the side of his nose.
"Then you think wrong!" he said. "There'll be marriages before
long--for both of us--but it'll not be as you suggest! There's Molteno
Lodge, across the road there--s'elp me, I've often seen that bit of a
retreat from the top of a 'bus, but I never knew it belonged to the
poor old man!"
They had now come to the lower part of Maida Vale, where many detached
houses stand in walled-in gardens, isolated and detached from each
other--Melky pointed to one of the smaller ones--a stucco villa, whose
white walls shone in the November moonlight. Its garden, surrounded by
high walls, was somewhat larger than those of the neighbouring houses,
and was filled with elms rising to a considerable height and with tall
bushes growing beneath them.
"Nice, truly rural sort of spot," said Melky, as they crossed the road
and approached the gate in the wall. "And--once inside--uncommon
private, no doubt! What do you say, Mr. Ayscough?"
The detective was examining the gate. It was a curious sort of gate,
set between two stout pillars, and fashioned of wrought ironwork, the
meshes of which were closely intertwined. Ayscough peered through the
upper part and saw a trim lawn, a bit of statuary, a garden seat, and
all the rest of the appurtenances common to a London garden whose
owners wish to remind themselves of rusticity--also, he saw no signs of
life in the house at the end of the garden.
"There's no light in this house," he remarked, trying the gate. "Looks
to me as if everybody was out. Are you going to ring?"
Melky pointed along the front of the wall.
"There's a sort of alley going up there, between this house and the
next," he said. "Come round--sure to be a tradesman's entrance--a
side-door--up there."
"Plenty of spikes and glass-bottle stuff on those walls, anyhow!"
remarked Ayscough, as they went round a narrow alley to the rear of the
villa. "Your grandfather evidently didn't intend anybody to get into
these premises very easily, Mr. Rubinstein. Six-foot walls and what you
might call regular fortifications on top of 'em! What are you going to
do, now?"
Melky had entered a recess in the side-wall and was examining a stout
door on which, plainly seen in the moonlight, were the words
_Tradesman's Entrance_. He turned the handle--and uttered an
exclamation.
"Open!" he said. "Come on, Mr. Ayscough--we're a-going in! If there is
anybody at home, all right--if there ain't, well, still all right. I'm
going to have a look round."
The detective followed Melky into a paved yard at the back of the
villa. All was very still there--and the windows were dark.
"No lights, back or front," remarked Ayscough. "Can't be anybody in.
And I say--if either of those Chinese gents was to let himself in with
his key at the front gate and find us prowling about, it wouldn't look
very well, would it, now? Why not call again--in broad daylight?"
"Shucks!" said Melky. "Ain't I one o' the landlords of this desirable
bit o' property? And didn't we find that door open? Come round to the
front."
He set off along a gravelled path which ran round the side of the
house, and ascended the steps to the porticoed front door. And there he
rang the bell--and he and his companion heard its loud ringing inside
the house. But no answer came--and the whole place seemed darker and
stiller than before.
"Of course there's nobody in!" muttered Ayscough. "Come on--let's get
out of it."
Melky made no answer. He walked down the steps, and across the lawn
beneath the iron-work gate in the street wall. A thick shrubbery of
holly and laurel bushes stood on his right--and as he passed it
something darted out--something alive and alert and sinuous--and went
scudding away across the lawn.
"Good Lord!" said Ayscough. "A rat! And as big as a rabbit!"
Melky paused, looked after the rat, and then at the place from which it
had emerged. And suddenly he stepped towards the shrubbery and drew
aside the thick cluster of laurel branches. Just as suddenly he started
back on the detective, and his face went white in the moonbeams.
"Mr. Ayscough!" he gasped. "S'elp me!--there's a dead man here! Look
for yourself!"
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
THE EMPTY HOUSE
Ayscough had manifested a certain restiveness and dislike to the
proceedings ever since his companion had induced him to enter the back
door of Molteno Lodge--these doings appeared to him informal and
irregular. But at Melky's sudden exclamation his professional instincts
were aroused, and he started forward, staring through the opening in
the bushes made by Melky's fingers.
"Good Lord!" he said. "You're right. One of the Chinamen!"
The full moon was high in a cloudless sky by that time, and its rays
fell full on a yellow face--and on a dark gash that showed itself in
the yellow neck below. Whoever this man was, he had been killed by a
savage knifethrust that had gone straight and unerringly through the
jugular vein. Ayscough pointed to a dark wide stain which showed on the
earth at the foot of the bushes.
"Stabbed!" he muttered. "Stabbed to death! And dragged in here--look at
that--and that!"
He turned, pointing to more stains on the gravelled path behind
them--stains which extended, at intervals, almost to the entrance door
in the outer wall. And then he drew a box of matches from his pocket,
and striking one, went closer and held the light down to the dead man's
face. Melky, edging closer to his elbow, looked, too.
"One of those Chinamen, without a doubt!" said Ayscough, as the match
flickered and died out. "Or, at any rate, a Chinaman. And--he's been
dead some days! Well!--this is a go!"
"What's to be done?" asked Melky. "It's murder!"
Ayscough looked around him. He was wondering how it was that a dead man
could lie in that garden, close to a busy thoroughfare, along which a
regular stream of traffic of all descriptions was constantly passing,
for several days, undetected. But a quick inspection of the
surroundings explained matters. The house itself filled up one end of
the garden; the other three sides were obscured from the adjacent
houses and from the street by high walls, high trees, thick bushes. The
front gate was locked or latched--no one had entered--no one, save the
owner of the knife that had dealt that blow, had known a murdered man
lay there behind the laurels. Only the rat, started by Melky's
footsteps, had known.
"Stay here!" said Ayscough. "Well--inside the gate, then--don't come
out--I don't want to attract attention. There'll be a constable
somewhere about."
He walked down to the iron-work gate, Melky following close at his
heels, found and unfastened the patent latch, and slipped out into the
road. In two minutes he was back again with a policeman. He motioned
the man inside and once more fastened the door.
"As you know this beat," he said quietly, as if continuing a
conversation already begun, "you'll know the two Chinese gentlemen who
have this house?"
"Seen 'em--yes," replied the policeman. "Two quiet little fellows--seen
'em often--generally of an evening."
"Have you seen anything of them lately?" asked Ayscough.
"Well, now I come to think of it, no, I haven't," answered the
policeman. "Not for some days."
"Have you noticed that the house was shut up--that there were no lights
in the front windows?" enquired the detective.
"Why, as a matter of fact, Mr. Ayscough," said the policeman, "you
never do see any lights here--the windows are shuttered. I know that,
because I used to give a look round when the house was empty."
"Do you know what servants they kept--these two?" asked Ayscough.
"They kept none!" answered the policeman. "Seems to me--from what bit I
saw, you know--they used the house for little more than sleeping in.
I've seen 'em go out of a morning, with books and papers under their
arms, and come home at night--similar. But there's no servants there.
Anything wrong, Mr. Ayscough?"
Ayscough moved toward the bushes.
"There's this much wrong," he answered. "There's one of 'em lying dead
behind those laurels with a knife-thrust through his throat! And I
should say, from the look of things, that he's been lying there several
days. Look here!"
The policeman looked--and beyond a sharp exclamation, remained stolid.
He glanced at his companions, glanced round the garden--and suddenly
pointed to a dark patch on the ground.
"There's blood there!" he said. "Blood!"
"Blood!" exclaimed Ayscough. "There's blood all the way down this path!
The man's been stabbed as he came in at that door, and his body was
then dragged up the path and thrust in here. Now then!--off you go to
the station, and tell 'em what we've found. Get help--he'll have to be
taken to the mortuary. And you'll want men to keep a watch on this
house--tell the inspector all about it and say I'm here. And
here--leave me that lamp of yours."
The policeman took off his bull's eye lantern and handed it over.
Ayscough let him out of the door, and going back to Melky, beckoned him
towards the house.
"Let's see if there's any way of getting in here," he said. "My
conscience, Mr. Rubinstein!--you must have had some instinct about
coming here tonight! We've hit on something--but Lord bless me if I
know what it is!"
"Mr. Ayscough!" said Melky. "I hadn't a notion of aught like that--it's
give me a turn! But don't I know what it means, Mr. Ayscough--not half!
It's all of a piece with the rest of it! Murder, Mr. Ayscough--bloody
murder! All on account of that orange-yellow diamond we've heard of--at
last. Ah!--if I'd known there was that at the bottom of this affair,
I'd ha' been a bit sharper in coming to conclusions, I would so!
Diamond worth eighty thousand pounds--."
Ayscough, who had been busy at the front door of the house, suddenly
interrupted his companion's reflections.
"The door's open!" he exclaimed. "Open! Not even on the latch. Come on!"
Melky shrank back at the prospect of the unlighted hall. There was a
horror in the garden, in that bright moonlight--what might there not be
in that black, silent house?
"Well, turn that there bull's eye on!" he said. "I don't half fancy
this sort of exploration. We'd ought to have had revolvers, you know."
Ayscough turned on the light and advanced into the hall. There was
nothing there beyond what one would expect to see in the hall of a
well-furnished house, nor was there anything but good furniture, soft
carpets, and old pictures to look at in the first room into which he
and Melky glanced. But in the room behind there were evidences of
recent occupation--a supper-table was laid: there was food on it, a
cold fowl, a tongue--one plate had portions of both these viands laid
on it, with a knife and fork crossed above them; on another plate close
by, a slice of bread lay, broken and crumbled--all the evidences showed
that supper had been laid for two, that only one had sat down to it:
that he had been interrupted at the very beginning of his meal--a glass
half-full of a light French wine stood near the pushed-aside plate.